I walk along the streets of LA, thinking about how all of my roommates are traveling around  Europe and I'm stuck here. I spent the day alone wishing I was with my friends Valerie, Emma, and Ron in Europe where the only thing they have to worry about is what place they want to go to next, while I'm stuck back home because my job won't let me take time off to go with them. Before they left they told me that they would also stay if I couldn't go, but I insisted that they should go.

 I spend most of my time alone in a house that feels too big now so I take long walks with my roommate Emma's dog, Precious. One night as we are walking back home, Precious stops and looks back, staring at what seems like nothing. I turn around and then see someone running with their dog. I ignore it and tell her to keep moving. I went about the rest of my day not thinking about what happened on the walk. 

The next day, I got ready to go to work when I got on my phone to text my roommates to see how they were doing and what their plans were for the day, but they didn't respond. I got off work and decided to go shopping. As I'm walking into the store one of my roommates calls me. “Hey, how are you guys doing over there? What's it like over there?” I ask.

“We're good, but we hate that you're not hear,” Emma said.

 “Yeah, we wish you could see what we see,” said Ron.

 “We've been to so many different places that you would have loved to see.” Valerie added. 

“I wish I could be with you guys experiencing it all with you instead I'm stuck here working. You guys have to tell me everything that happened when you get back.”

“We can send you a couple of the videos that we took.” Valerie said.

 “Yeah that would be great. Well I gotta go now. Talk later?”

“Yeah, talk to ya later.”

 “Bye.”

 “Bye.”

I go and check out and start heading back to where I parked my car. I got a notification on my phone saying that someone was seen in the backyard. I remember leaving Precious inside. I check the camera and I don't see anyone there. While I was driving I would glance at my phone to see if I got another notification.

I get home and as I'm about to walk around the house a black car that I've never seen before is parked on the street. I assume one of my neighbors just had a guest over. I walked around the house to make sure that nothing was out of the ordinary. After checking, I head back to the front door and the same car that I looked at was gone. I opened the door to where I was greeted by Precious. I looked around the house just to make sure that none of the windows were messed with. I go about the rest of my day getting ready to take Precious out for a walk. I contemplated telling my friend what had happened and how weird the last couple of days have been but I never did catch anything on camera so I just let it go and don't tell them. 

Precious and I take a walk around the neighborhood and I start to notice her looking behind me more than in front of me so I start to look back too multiple times, but I don't see anything. Precious and I started to turn around to head back to the house because the sun was starting to set and the street would get dark fast, when we noticed that some of the street lights were out. As I walk in the dark I start to feel like someone is watching me.

 I look around in the dark while walking back home when I see flowers on the doorstep. I picked up the flowers thinking that my friends got them for me because they felt bad I wasn't able to be with them, but it didn't say who sent the flowers. No card on nothing. I didn't even know they delivered flowers this late in the day.

I went inside and texted my friends. “Hey did one of you send flowers to the house?” 

“No,” they all texted.

 I couldn't think of anyone else that would send me flowers just because. I checked the cameras to see who dropped them off but when I did I couldn’t see their faces. I leave the flowers on the counter and start heading to the bedroom when I hear the doorbell ring. I open the door and don't see anyone. I look down to see a note. I pick it up and close the door to read it inside. 

The note said, “I hope you like the flowers I picked out for you.” There was nothing else on the note. I looked out the window to see if the person who left the flowers was still out there but there was no one. I tried to call my friends to tell them what happened but noner of them responded. I checked all the cameras to see if there was anyone out there but nothing. I go to bed and take the dog bed with me so Precious could sleep in my room. 

I wake up in the middle of the night to noises outside in the backyard. I'm too scared to move from my bed so I lay there in fear when I see a shadow of a person. They tried to take pictures of my room, but the blinds were down. As soon as they leave I get my phone to call 911. I waited for the cops for what seemed like forever. I told them what happened and mentioned the flowers I received that night too. 

Before the police left I told them that there has been a car parked outside the house and no one knows who it belongs to. I went outside to show them, but the car was gone. They told me if I ever saw the car again in the area to call them and to not approach the vehicle. 

A couple of days have gone by since I saw the car. I have already told my friends what happened that night. They started to feel bad that they left me alone. I told them, “There is no way you would have known that all of that was going to happen.” 

Ron said, “Well if we did stay it probably wouldn't have happened.” 

A week has gone by since what happened and my roommates are back home now. The black car also hasn't been back since that night. Every time I walk through the parking lot at my job, every black car looks like the one that was in the neighborhood. One night, while I was getting ready to go for a walk Ron and Valerie were outside waiting for me when I heard someone yell. 

Ron and Valerie were waiting outside when they noticed someone hiding in the bushes across the street. Ron and Valerie start to approach the guy when the guy starts to run. As he was running he dropped a camera that he had with him. Ron was able to catch up to him and tackle him down. While Ron has him on the ground Valerie is calling the cops. 

I ran outside to see what was going on when I noticed Ron pinning someone down while Valerie was on the phone. I asked Valerie what was happening when she told me “He was hiding in the bushes across the house with a camera pointing it at our house.” When the cop arrived Ron and Valerie told them what happened and gave them the camera that he had with them.

The guy's name is Geoffrey, and that's all I was able to know about him since he didn't want to talk with the cops. I start heading back to the house. When the cop told me that they would contact me if they find anything on the camera that could indicate that he was the one stalking me.

After what felt like forever they told me that he had thousands of pictures of me that go back months and how he had been following me everywhere I go. They also told me that if we were to press charges that he might not even get five years in jail. If I don't press charges he would be a free man, but if I do then there is also a chance that nothing would happen to him. 

Before I could call to tell them if I wanted to press charges or not, I found out that he got out and I started to think about all the bad things that could happen when all the sudden the power goes out and I hear a loud bang down the hallway.